Learning languages a way out of crisis, says Vassiliou

Learning foreign languages can become a way for Europeans to exit the economic doldrums and find employment opportunities across borders, says language and culture Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou.

As well as producing more mobile and language-savvy citizens, European institutions and businesses should learn to better cope with a multilingual society, Vassiliou told a conference of policymakers and academics at the European Economic and Social Committee on Tuesday (5 March), an EU consultative body.

“If we want more mobile students and workers, and businesses that can operate on a European and world scale, we need better language competences – and these must be better targeted to the current and future needs of the labour market,” she said.

The latest European Commission figures show that in 2011 just 42% of European 15-year-olds were competent in their first foreign language, despite often having learned it from seven years of age. Furthermore, the figure differed hugely across different EU countries, with 82% for Sweden and just 9% for Britain.

The commissioner added that fostering languages was about more than employment for professional linguists, translators and interpreters.

“Our society will always need language specialists – professional linguists translating or interpreting, such as those people in the booths covering our proceedings today,” she said. “But languages, like politics, are too important to our lives to be left to specialists only.”

Elephant in the room

The commissioner also spoke of the position of English as the EU’s lingua franca – once an “elephant in the room” in Brussels – but added that learning it should not come at the expense of other languages.

“While English may be seen as a ‘basic skill’ today … I am still absolutely convinced that it is more and more the knowledge of other languages that can make the difference in getting a job and progressing in one’s career,” she said.

The commissioner spoke at the British Council-hosted conference, called Language Rich Europe, on how the EU can better make use of and cope with its linguistic diversity.

Brussels has adopted a multilingualism strategy which aims for each citizen to have acquired practical skills in at least two languages other than their mother tongue, nicknamed “mother tongue plus two”.

Kristina Cunningham, the head of Vassiliou’s multilingualism department, said the economic crisis had convinced policymakers to revisit the strategy, proposing a European benchmark for language acquisition.

“This should measure on the one hand the percentage of pupils learning at least two foreign languages, and on the other the level of competences in the first foreign language studied,” Vassiliou added.

“It is my hope that this proposal will be adopted next year.”

Positions

Lid King, director of the Languages Company, said: “English is perceived as the language people should learn and are learning. That used to be the elephant in the room. Now we can see that elephant.” He said policymakers needed to recognise the “particular position” of English but that “more work needs to be done on how English can be used to support multilingualism.” He called on a strategy of subtitling as opposed to dubbing films, televisions programmes and conferences.

Faced with growing divisions amongst member states during the crisis, the EU needed to go in a positive direction towards celebrating diversity rather than being defensive and falling into ‘linguistic protectionism’, King said. He added that multilingualism could “calm tensions”, both amongst Europeans from different member states and non-EU immigrants.

Sjur Bergan, head of the Council of Europe’s education department, called for more advanced linguistic profiling which took into account of all levels of language learning. He said that learning English well as a first foreign language, which employers often deem necessary, could aid multilingualism by becoming a ‘gateway’ language. “It should open up to learning other languages.”

Kristina Cunningham, the head of Vassiliou’s multilingualism department, said the startlingly low foreign-language competence levels suggested Europe needed to modernise its educational system but that it would need huge funding to carry that out. She added that multilingualism was a challenge “linked to exiting Europe from the crisis”.

Background

The European Union is committed to promoting multilingualism and aims to have every EU citizen speak at least two foreign languages.

In November 2005 the European Commission adopted its framework strategy for multilingualism laying out the commitments for Lifelong Learning programmes, youth exchanges, town twinning programmes, financial support for lesser-used and minority languages, and financial support for research programmes on language issues.

Comments

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Before doing this, us English need to sort out a tongue that has become a thorough stranger to his forerunner and has no right to be called English really. If The English spoke the tongue as it should be spoken (without needless Latin and Greek additions), The English would be ready to move about. Anyway, why should folks have to move to other lands to gain jobs when jobs bestand at home but are unfairly opened to fremde lede ?

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Anonymous

07/03/2013 07:46

The poor rates of language learning in the EU are really not so poor when you look globally. The reason why they are not so poor is the ready access to other countries/languages. If you want to see poor rates of language learning, you need to look no further than Australia! The differences in the rates of success between the UK and Sweden is more to attitudinal factors of the 2 countries and less to do with the ways languages are taught. All in all, the conclusion one can come to that current language teaching/learning paradigms are lacking. The fact… Read more »

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Anonymous

08/03/2013 16:37

Lee, what is fremde lede…I have a degree in EFL but I have no idea what that means. Better keep the English as an accessible language for all Europeana if you wish to keep it as a communication language.

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Anonymous

08/03/2013 20:37

English language is important in all corners of the globe for many reasons.The problem I have with Miss.Vassiliou is not her idea as much as the country she is from.In 1913 Macedonia was partitioned illegally by the French and Germans.In 1925 at the League of Nations Greece,Bulgaria and Serbia are signatories to preserve the minority languages,specifically in Greece the Macedonian language.Greece printed a book in Macedonian language(Abecedar)for the Macedonian school children.Greece never issued this learning book.Today,Greece does not even recognize the existence of the Macedonian identity nor Macedonian language. Greece loves to manipulate others in doing something about,but does not… Read more »

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Anonymous

09/03/2013 10:49

Excellent Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou!
Multilingualism IS the way forward. I know English, Japanese, German, Danish and Hebrew to varying levels. With each new language studied my access to symbols, sounds, data, world view and intercultural understanding flourish. I now write sonnets like Shakespeare, psalms like King David and play Moonlight Sonata more readily. Excellent.

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Anonymous

09/03/2013 17:47

English, as he is, is not a tongue I can say is ‘English’. So as for him being an ‘accessible language’, that is not my concern really but what is my concern is Tthe fact that The English Lede (people, nation, tribe)are held back from even being able to speak their own tongue befittingly. Call it ‘Linguistic Purism’ but the reason why English folks are pants at learning other tongues is because our own has being mutilated beyond belief and consists of trying to speak mid fancy Latin and Greek drawn words mid Germanic conjugation and declension. The end result… Read more »

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Anonymous

13/03/2013 09:05

Oddly enough, half the above comments to this article make little sense to me. I guess this just proves the commissioner’s point – not everyone should depend on English as the lingua franca. 🙂

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Anonymous

13/03/2013 13:40

I agree. Until us English can sort out our own tongue, a lingua franca it should not be. That role can fall to Latin, a more precise and refined tongue than the rubbish known as English today !

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Anonymous

09/04/2013 22:18

Cannot see a mention of the linguistic imperialism of English here. I believe that we need an international language, but a lingua franca for the World should be for everyone and not just for an educational or political elite. This is the position for English at the moment. So which language should it be? The British learn French, the Australians study Japanese and the Americans prefer Spanish. Yet this leaves Mandarin Chinese out of the equation. Why not teach a common international language, in all schools and in all nations, worldwide ? As a native English speaker, my vote is… Read more »